solar electric and power outages

After reading about the battles with CFE I was wondering if I install solar panels does the generated electric first serve my electrical needs and the excess go out to the electrical grid or all out to the grid and come back with reduced bill? I know very little about solar power and was wondering. It would be an answer to outages if it did and that would be nice benifit.

You need to be able to store electricity to have power while the grid is out. It
requires batteries and electronics. Most solar panel down here just run the
meter backwards and the whole thing is disconnected if the power goes
out. Yes you can make your electrical bill smaller with solar.

Z

You could use an LP generator also to power your house if the grid goes down.
Panels, AC grid, and Generator can be used together.

As Zed said, most folks don,t use batteries, rather should the power go out which is seldom in my area of Ajijic, they use a generator.

I installed mine before the 2008 crash, when I thought I had too much money, (not anymore) and installed an 8 six volt deep cell batteries. So far never a problem and whem the power has gone out, all for very short periods, fingers crossed, so far. I have never had problems. The trouble is that my system only provides power for one phase, which means no backup power for the two phase pumps, which is no big deal (it would be if the power were out for a couple of days)

I beleive you can even work yourself into a "credit" situation with the CFE if you have enough panels. They will owe you money......jaja.

This past March we installed solar panels on the roof of our Ajijic home employing the services of e-Sun Enery Solar Electric Systems in Ajijic. We chose e-Sun because they are local to Lakeside and we felt utilizing a local company to intercede with us at CFE was important. This was not a cheap project but we have been stuck on DAC so long, we felt it was a worthy project which, in a few years would prove worthwhile. We shall see.

As far as providing electrical energy during electrical outages, you can forget that. According to the people at e-Sun, their systems cannot deliver power during outages as that would feed back power to electrical lines and endanger CFE workers trying to restore power to community-wide lines. Therefore, the system shuts down when CFE lines are incapacitated. The advantage of the solar power generation on your property is the supposed savings on your electric bill over time which should be significant. We anticipate that our monthly charge for electricity should be substantially reduced as we receive credit for energy we have provided which is then applied to our bi-monthly CFE charge. Once we have been utilizing our solar energy system for a sufficient amount of time, we´ll report our experience to the rest of you but it´s too early to tell at this time.

Considering the fact that CFE usilizes mostly fossil fuels to generate electrical power and costs are almost certain to rise, installation of solar panels at one´s residence seems like a good idea to us. If not, too late now for us.

yes they do under the form of credit and then you can have fun reconciling the bills every time they come.

thanks for all the info. With fossil energy definately going up in the future it might be wise to put a unit in just to stay out of the dac and no more.. I won't look at it as a continual sourse of power now. thanks for the replies...Bill

I will just add my 2 centavos worth. Four people in our community have installed solar panels. The first person installed them about 6 - 9 months ago. He had eSun do the installation. He had 14 panels installed at a cost of $ 16,000 US. Remember it is getting cheaper by the month.

My other neighbor had 12 panels installed by another manufacturer at a cost of $ 10,000. He sent me his electric bill and explanation. As of 78 days he paid only $ 5 total for electricity and has generated some 260 hours as a credit that he can use in the winter. If someone wants the name of the panel manufacturer I can probably find it. He was in the DAC rate with bills of 5,000 pesos every two months.

His cousin installed a system about 1 month later with 11 panels for $ 8,900 US, a savings over what he paid.

The new panels can generate more electricity than before. I think he said each panel can generate either 235 watts or 250 watts. If I weren't selling, I would install them. I think anyone being in the DAC rate would be wise to install them, but wait a while as the price keeps dropping.

It costs $ to wait. CFE rates are going up 18% this year. My most recent bill was $75 Pesos. I have a system installed by E2 Engergias, IMHO far superior to eSun. YMMV. Want details? PM me.

hound dog wrote:This past March we installed solar panels on the roof of our Ajijic home employing the services of e-Sun Enery Solar Electric Systems in Ajijic. We chose e-Sun because they are local to Lakeside and we felt utilizing a local company to intercede with us at CFE was important. This was not a cheap project but we have been stuck on DAC so long, we felt it was a worthy project which, in a few years would prove worthwhile. We shall see.

As far as providing electrical energy during electrical outages, you can forget that. According to the people at e-Sun, their systems cannot deliver power during outages as that would feed back power to electrical lines and endanger CFE workers trying to restore power to community-wide lines. Therefore, the system shuts down when CFE lines are incapacitated. The advantage of the solar power generation on your property is the supposed savings on your electric bill over time which should be significant. We anticipate that our monthly charge for electricity should be substantially reduced as we receive credit for energy we have provided which is then applied to our bi-monthly CFE charge. Once we have been utilizing our solar energy system for a sufficient amount of time, we´ll report our experience to the rest of you but it´s too early to tell at this time.

Considering the fact that CFE usilizes mostly fossil fuels to generate electrical power and costs are almost certain to rise, installation of solar panels at one´s residence seems like a good idea to us. If not, too late now for us.

I love it when I read the power company is worried about your solar panels making the grid live when there is a power failure. Well the way all this
works is now the whole load of the grid is on your solar panels. Trust me your 2,3,4,5 1000 watts of panels isn't going to stay on line very long.
My guess is a half of a second. We tested this theory with a 5000watt generator with the power company during a failure. We put the generator
on line and it shut down instantly. (yes we did it with the power company they were curius also). Also electronics switches can move your solar
output to batteries which could be connected to an inverter to create AC from your Solar Panels. All it takes is money and you can do anything
with all this stuff without endangering the folks working on the grid. Dawg your grid only system is the way to go down here economically but
it doesn't keep your fridge going which is what I want.

Z

David wrote:It costs $ to wait. CFE rates are going up 18% this year. My most recent bill was $75 Pesos. I have a system installed by E2 Engergias, IMHO far superior to eSun. YMMV. Want details? PM me.

David - Thanks for posting. That is the company the two people I posted about above had their systems installed by.

... Dawg your grid only system is the way to go down here economically but
it doesn't keep your fridge going which is what I want.


Keep in mind that the reason for going solar is to save money in the long run and not to escape the ocassional CFE outages inevitable among electricity providers anywhere on the planet. We cannot tell any of you whether or not our hugeley expensive investment in solar energy was a wise decision until we have some experience to relate and that will come about this winter. If it works out to our advantage, we will not know for some time so that´s that.

Dawg does not even know what electricity is . Do you?

hound dog wrote:... Dawg your grid only system is the way to go down here economically but
it doesn't keep your fridge going which is what I want.


Keep in mind that the reason for going solar is to save money in the long run and not to escape the ocassional CFE outages inevitable among electricity providers anywhere on the planet. We cannot tell any of you whether or not our hugeley expensive investment in solar energy was a wise decision until we have some experience to relate and that will come about this winter. If it works out to our advantage, we will not know for some time so that´s that.

Dawg does not even know what electricity is . Do you?

Electricity is Electrons moving along a wire. (Actually they argue about whether the electrons move or the holes between the electron move)
If they move in one direction you have DC (your car is DC). If they move back and forth 60 times a second (60HZ) that is AC like your house.


Z

There's also the argument about whether they flow towards ground or from ground. I always liked the "hole-flow" theory myself.

Zedinmexico wrote:

hound dog wrote:... Dawg your grid only system is the way to go down here economically but
it doesn't keep your fridge going which is what I want.


Keep in mind that the reason for going solar is to save money in the long run and not to escape the ocassional CFE outages inevitable among electricity providers anywhere on the planet. We cannot tell any of you whether or not our hugeley expensive investment in solar energy was a wise decision until we have some experience to relate and that will come about this winter. If it works out to our advantage, we will not know for some time so that´s that.

Dawg does not even know what electricity is . Do you?

Electricity is Electrons moving along a wire. (Actually they argue about whether the electrons move or the holes between the electron move)
If they move in one direction you have DC (your car is DC). If they move back and forth 60 times a second (60HZ) that is AC like your house.
Z

Thank you Z. Now, what the hell is an electron?

That solar system at our house in Ajijic cost us around $8,900USD. If it accomplishes what we hope it will accomplish then we will recover our investment in about four years. If it doesn´t then Dawg will be screwed to the wall but that´s OK since I´ll probably be dead and unconcerned with these earthly matters anyway but , rather, trying to explain to The Lord Jesus or Allah or some other deity (take your pick) why I wasted my youth endlessly masturbating rather than accomplishing humanitarian works.

When we lived off grid in Colorado, the batteries were usually good for 2-3 days of cloudy weather. Then we went to the generator. I am not familiar with grid tied systems, but I would certainly ask about a battery backup if you live in an outage prone area.